Coming Soon to a Center Near You

Do you know where SBC Park is? How about Petco Park? Citizens Bank Park? No?

OK, do you know where Yankee Stadium is? What about Dodger Stadium? Fenway Park? Of course you do.*

Let's move on to convention centers. I'll bet almost everybody knows where McCormick Place is, but how many of you have a clue where the Midwest Airlines Center is? Does the RCA Dome ring a bell?

These unfamiliar-sounding centers (to some) and their cities have fallen victim to corporate branding.

Yes, corporations funnel millions of dollars into venues that can certainly use the money. Still, FedEx Field does not exactly provoke the same kind of imagery as Candlestick Park or Three Rivers Stadium once did, does it?

OK, let corporate America have its sports arenas. The clock cannot be turned back, and there's no point in further confusing the public. But now there appears to be a trend, so far in its infancy, to do the same with convention centers.

This is nothing new. There is a handful of convention centers already displaying corporate names, including the RCA Dome at the Indianapolis Convention Center and the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee, and their officials say they are very pleased with their names.

Soon there may be more. Just last month, Philadelphia Mayor John Street advocated just this option for the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

The Phoenix City Council is talking about going down this path soon as well, even if it may still need to do a little work to get all its constituents behind the idea. Sally Forrest, director of national accounts for the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau, recently said at the Assn. for Convention Marketing Executives annual meeting in Washington, D.C., "Maybe it's the conservative in me, but I want my center to be named for my city, not a company."

It figures that sports facilities would precede convention centers with the naming game. Professional sports teams (well, the good ones at least) are always in the public eye. Rarely, however, do ESPN or USA Today have the opportunity to work Boston's Bayside Expo & Executive Conference Center into a sportscast or news story. So, it makes sense corporations would first put their money where they could get the most mention for the buck.

So, why the increased interest now in convention centers?

The findings laid bare in the January Brookings Institution study give us some insight. Since many of the convention centers that have recently been built or completed expansions have not quite yet reeled in the number of shows they need to cover expenses, city leaders are compelled to take revenue wherever they can get it.

But it may not be the best idea around. Also during the ACME meeting, Professional Convention Management Assn. Chairman Gregg Talley called convention center branding "confusing to me as a customer."

Then there's the question of whether a convention center named after a major corporation would hamper business. What if a key exhibitor or potential sponsor just happens to be a major competitor of the branded corporation? And what happens when a convention center outlives the good name of its namesake?

Learn from the mistakes of a Houston or St. Paul, Minn., and pick your partners wisely: Enron Field is now called Minute Maid Park, and the former Touchstone Energy Place is now the St. Paul RiverCentre.

It is true that many large corporations provide thousands of jobs to their respective cities and play a positive role in their communities, but it is rarely to honor a contribution to the community that a company looks to have its name attached to a public institution.

Instead, take a page from Pittsburgh's David L. Lawrence Convention Center's playbook. When center officials opted to name the new facility in honor of the former mayor and state governor, they also opted to sell naming rights to its ballroom (the Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom Presented by Dollar Bank) and a terrace (the Noresco Terrace). The center made $1.75 million with the two names, and still managed to make its city's citizens proud.

Another option is to mimic the Cajundome/Convention Center in Lafayette, La., and pay tribute to your city's character.

Otherwise, where will it all end? I fear a future in which I live in California Pizza Kitchen City — formerly known as Los Angeles.

*By the way, SBC Park is in San Francisco, Petco Park is in San Diego and Citizens Bank Park is in Philadelphia. And, in case you really don't know, Yankee Stadium is in New York, Dodger Stadium is in Los Angeles and Fenway Park is in Boston.